I’ve never started a thread, but that would be a fun one: Where will Yoshida’s deal rank (WAR/$) among Boston’s largest (>$50M) FA deals?
Using bWAR and salaries paid (I subtracted about half of the last year if traded during season), and in order of best to worst.
Manny: about $4.2 m/War (33.2 bWAR, 138M (bref lists 147M, with 19M in last year, so I subtracted 9)
JD Drew: about $6.2/WAR (11.3 bWAR, 70M in salary)
JD Martinez: about $8.1/WAR (13.6 bWAR, 110M in salary
DiceK: about $11m/war (9.3 bWAR, 103M including the posting fee)
Lackey: about $14.6M/WAR (3.9 bWAR, 57 M (including splitting 2014 with StL)
Price: about $17M/war (9.7 bWAR, 169 salary (including the 48M in payments to LA)
Crawford: about $28m/war (0.9 bWAR, ~25M in salary)
Rusney: about $45m/war (1.6 bWAR, 72.5M salary)
Hanley: about $55M/WAR (1.6 bWAR, 88M salary)
Pablo: about $-59/WAR (-1.6 bWAR, 94M including buyout and release payments)
(The two best contracts (Manny and JD Drew) by raw numbers probably should also be reduced a little due to inflation)...but it isn't a very high bar for Yoshida to clear to make it near the top. I think between the two JD's would be a reasonable floor, assuming health. (say $7M/WAR, which would be about 2.6 WAR per year)
(Did I miss any others among deals >50M? Technically Yoan Moncada was paid 63M with the 100% penalty, but obviously his 20 PA stint with the Red Sox hardly should qualify him for this list, without doing some gymnastics to include some of Sale's WAR.
And Story's contract is still a WIP.